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It’s Monday gang, which means it is time to start moving! Move it Monday is a way to get a fresh and active start to our week so let’s get moving!
I want to spend time exercising, but my house is a mess. I don’t have time to do both, so which do I choose?
Sound familiar? (If you saw my house, you would understand that I usually choose exercise! )
Today, however, I need to get the house clean so I am going to combine the two tasks together for a great move it Monday workout. Lace up your shoes and join me!
Here is the plan:
- Vacuum: Do 1 room or area. Turn vacuum off and do 20 stationary squats. Knees in line, tailbone back, breathe! Repeat for as many rooms as you need to vacuum. If you have a big house, be prepared for some serious squatting!
- Laundry: My least favorite, so today I will mix it with my favorite cardio activity, running! Since all of our dirty clothes are upstairs, I will run up and down the stairs to go and get them. 4 baskets=4 times to run the stairs. Repeat (without baskets) just because you can! I’m running fast, are you?
- Lunges: just do them! 20 forward lunges on each leg.
- Toy pick up: I’m on the floor already, so let’s do push ups! 4 sets of 10, either full military style or on your knees.
- Kitchen:
- unload dishwasher and then do a set of 10 squat kicks. (like we did last week)
- Load dirty dishes in dishwasher, do another set of 10 squat kicks.
- Wipe down counters and tables, do one more set of 10 squat kicks.
- Tricep dips: just do them! 20 dips off the edge of a chair or the coffee table.
- Bedrooms: make bed and then drop to the floor for a set of 20 crunches. Again, repeat for number of beds that need to be made.
- Kids rooms: picking up more toys means more push ups! 4 more sets of 10
- Jumping Jacks: just do them! 50 jacks—-yes you can!
Did I forget anything? Hmmm….I seem to have conveniently left out the bathrooms. Well, maybe next time!
Right now it is time to stretch and drink a giant glass of water. Great job gang! Your house is clean and your workout is done!
Written on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Filed under move it Monday, workouts.
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January 28th, 2008 at 11:30 am
That is really creative. I’m gonna hafta try that on my next day off.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I just found this blog through a comment on sisterskinny. I never thought about combining working out and cleaning. Love the Monday workout plan.
January 28th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Hi!
Got to your website via skinny jeans
Great ideas! I’m in your position as well (sahm with a toddler). And your ideas just motivate me to get more exercise (no excuse now!), and so glad to see there’s a blog like yours.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Hey Lisa,
Great Monday Post! Monday is also my worst day because I always seem to start behind the game.
Mom’s need this advice!
Bless you-
Merry K.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Wow, great suggestions for people who don’t have time to exercise. BTW, have you joined Iowa Avenue’s Tight Ass Challenge? From the sound of it, you’d be a great inspiration for the other members…………..:)
January 29th, 2008 at 7:43 am
I know you purposely left out bathrooms, but seriously, my arms get a good workout while scrubbing the shower doors and floor. I don’t like it but feel like I’m doing a little something good for myself while cleaning the shower (which I hate to do!)
January 29th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I think this is a great idea! I don’t think I will ever think of housework in the same way again.
January 29th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
“Move it Monday” I love that. It’s inspiring!
February 1st, 2008 at 10:40 am
I’m so glad you commented on my contest post - you have a wonderful blog!
One thing I like to do with the laundry is lifts with the baskets. I think they are called deadlifts? My husband would know, he’s the “gym rat” of the family. *chuckle* Anyway, between things like that and lifting my son, my hubby says that he’s seen a difference in my arms. Now if only *I* could see it. I feel like I’m still all “waggly”. I know they say that it takes 40 weeks to have a baby and you should give yourself at least that time to get back into shape but waaaaa! He’s 7 months old now!!!
February 1st, 2008 at 1:10 pm
[...] This Week in Babies & Kids Blogs Posted February 1, 2008 by evette Found in: This Week in Babies & Kids Blogs Work Out Mommy?explains her great?multi-tasking workout/clean-the-house routine:? Move It Monday? [...]
March 17th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!!! You have to read this article….Zookeepers are putting the animals on weight watchers! Assigning them point values and everything. If they can do it, we can! Hopefully they won’t “kill” for a snickers bar
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080317/ap_on_he_me/zoo_diets_3&printer=1
Time to put that gorilla on a diet By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer
1 hour, 39 minutes ago
Gorillas on Weight Watchers? Polar bears slurping sugar-free Jell-O shots? Giraffes nibbling alfalfa biscuits?
The days of letting visitors throw marshmallows to the animals are mostly history at zoos around the country, replaced by a growing focus on diet and nutrition that parallels the fitness craze in humans.
And thanks to mounting research on wild animals’ food needs, today’s zoo staffers are trying new feeding tricks to keep their lions and tigers and bears healthy and happy.
Avoiding obesity is part of the program.
Like humans, many zoo animals “like the good stuff. They like the sugary, high-fat food, and they’re not moving as much as they’re genetically programmed to,” said Jennifer Watts, staff nutritionist at suburban Brookfield Zoo, west of Chicago.
Adding to the challenge is that food is used for training and to help keep animals psychologically stimulated. Too much “enrichment” can result in love handles, even on bears and gorillas.
So Watts is hatching a Weight Watchers-style plan for the beasts. The idea is to assign points to food and allow the animals a limited number of extra points a week.
For example, molasses is a favorite treat of the bears and gorillas. Keepers often spread it around their enclosures to get them moving. Under Watts’ plan, two cups of molasses might be worth two points, and granola bars — a favorite bear treat — would be worth one.
“We’re trying to keep calorie intake within a limit … “We are very vigilant about monitoring the animals’ weight, because, like humans, it can lead to other health problems,” Watts said.
Keepers at the Indianapolis Zoo are trying a different approach. Instead of fattening sweets, they offer sugar-free Jell-O to their polar bears, hiding the treats around the habitat.
“It tastes good, but is calorie-free,” said zoo nutritionist Jason Williams.
Other tasty treats include low-salt crackers and specially prepared alfalfa biscuits offered to giraffes at some zoos, said veterinarian Chris Hanley from the Toledo Zoo. His zoo has an annual “Big Feed” day where visitors can feed animals veggies and other healthful snacks.
Many zoos help animals avoid couch potato-style eating by hiding bits of food around their enclosures to encourage food foraging similar to hunting in the wild.
At the Toledo Zoo, lions and tigers even get whole calf carcasses and wolves chow down on deer roadkill. The idea primarily is to provide a more natural, additive-free feeding method, but it does require a little more energy than slurping from a plate.
Some zoos have tried spreading the scent of prey around animals’ habitats to get them up and moving. At the St. Louis Zoo, that’s included dragging burlap bags filled with zebra feces around the lion habitat.
“There’s not food, there’s just ‘eau de food,” said the zoo’s nutritionist Ellen Dierenfeld.
Zoo nutritionists first started to appear in the 1970s and ’80s; now about 20 of the nation’s 216 accredited zoos and aquariums have full-time nutritionists, and many others work with nutritionists as consultants.
Before zoo nutrition became a science, animals often got food similar to what was fed to domestic livestock or pets. That often resulted in malnutrition — even weak bones and fractures.
At Brookfield Zoo, Cookie the Cockatoo is a squawky 74-year-old who has been around since the days before exotic birds’ dietary needs were well-understood.
“What Cookie liked to eat was seeds,” which are high in fats and oils but have little bone-building calcium and phosphorus, Watts said. “For about 40 years all he ate were seeds,” until a nutritionist was hired.
The result was osteoporosis, the same bone-thinning condition that affects millions of older humans.
Now the missing minerals are added to Cookie’s water to keep his bones from getting weaker.
“One of the challenges of being a zoo nutritionist is that we cannot replicate an animal’s natural diet,” Watts said. “We can’t go to South America and collect the figs or the branches or the beetles that an animal eats there.”
Zoo nutritionists instead rely on researchers to “get samples of what animals eat, to observe what parts of plants they eat and what types of prey items that they might consume and bring that back to us so that we can analyze the diets,” she said. “The best that we can do here at the zoo is mimic those nutrients”
But unlike human nutrition, which focuses on one species, zoo nutritionists have to design diets for many animals.
“Carnivore, herbivore, grass-eaters, ruminants … nectar, fruit, blood, fish,” Watts said. “Any kind of feeding strategy is represented here at the zoo and they all have different requirements and needs that have to be addressed.”
___
Brookfield Zoo: http://www.brookfieldzoo.org
Association of Zoos and Aquariums: http://www.aza.org
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